BLACKLIST: Government cracks down on Whirlpool.net.au

The trial of wide-scale Internet filtering is supposed to be ongoing but the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is already wielding a nasty weapon it can use to block any site it likes without further discussion. Just what is a link deletion notice and why does it represent a major threat to online freedom in Australia?

Broadband information and discussion site Whirlpool is no stranger to legal action having successfully fought off an attempt by accounting software developer 2Clix to have content which criticised 2Clix products deleted from its forum. Yet last week Whirlpool did remove a link from a post on its site after its hosting provider Bulletproof was issued with a “link deletion notice” from ACMA.

The post reproduced an earlier complaint which had been submitted to ACMA by a user to test how its current policy of blocking “prohibited content” was applied. The link in question. which was part of the submission contained anti-abortion information judged by ACMA to be likely to be illegal.

I refer to the complaint that you lodged withthe Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) on 5th January2009 about certain content made available at:

http://www. URL REMOVED .htm

Following investigation of your complaint ACMAis satisfied that the internet content is hosted outside Australia andthat the content is prohibited or potential prohibited content.

The Internet Industry Association (IIA) has a code of practicefor Internet Service Providers (ISPs) which among other things setout arrangements for dealing with such content. In accordance with thecode ACMA has notified the above content to the makers of IIA approvedfilters for their attention and appropriate action. The code requiresISPs to make available to customers an IIA approved filter.

Information about ACMA's role in regulatingonline content (including internet and mobile content) including whatis prohibited or potentially prohibited content is available at ACMA'swebsite at www.acma.gov.au/hotline

Thank you for bringing this matter to ACMA's attention.

“As we have a policy of never editing people’s content the entire post had to be removed” Whirlpool founder Simon Wright explained on the site. ACMA had complained to Whirlpool’s hosting company Bulletproof Networks rather than Whirlpool itself because its jurisdiction extends to “hosting services” rather than site creators.

One reason the decision has caused controversy is that ACMA appears to have a confused policy over whether such links can ever be made public. It has earlier issued public assurances that people are free to publish the results of their complaints to ACMA but its successful attempt to remove the link from Whirlpool contradicts that statement.

Wright was quick to pick up on the contradiction. “I don’t get it either but that doesn’t stop ACMA from declaring whatever they like or links to whatever they like as inappropriate. Today it’s abortion sites. Tomorrow it’s drug sites? Propaganda sites? Wikipedia?” (That last example isn’t unlikely as Wikipedia was effectively blocked in the UK because of objections to a single image in a single article earlier this year before the decision was reversed.)

Link deletion notices explained

The “link deletion” process was introduced in 2007 as part of Schedule 7 of the Communications Legislation Amendment (Content Services) Act 2007 and thus represents one of the last actions of the former Federal Liberal administration.

However Labor has been quick to latch onto it as part of its controversial censorship plans. Even by legislative standards the phrasing is particularly arcane with repeated cross-references to type A and B remedial situations. However the actual mechanics are relatively straightforward.

So how can a link deletion notice be issued? For a regular site content would need to have been judged likely to have been classified as RC or X18+ and added to ACMA’s blacklist of prohibited content. Technically this is known as “potential prohibited content”. Anyone can suggest sites or pages that might fall into this category to ACMA which can add them to its blacklist – though it has no effective way of having content hosted overseas removed.

However sites which are hosted in Australia but which link to blacklisted sites can result in the hosting company being issued with a “link deletion notice”. Faced with that option hosting companies only have two effective choices: volunteering to remove the link or seeking to have the content in question formally classified to determine if it would be legal. Few site owners are likely to pursue the second option especially for what is only a single link to an external site.

One obvious tricky aspect of this scenario is that the actual contents of the blacklist aren’t made public so someone could unwittingly post a link onto an Australian-hosted site from overseas making the site a potential candidate for a link deletion notice. Reporting on the issues involved is also tricky since any content on the blacklist can’t be linked to in a news story without risking further invocation of the code.